"Doctor who?" a muffled shout came over the intercom, the voice obviously male. "Can't you see that I'm a bit busy trying not to be obliterated by a black hole?"

Damian stared at the screen in shock, completely flabbergasted. The man spoke english, which wasn't too rare as English was the international form of communication, but his statement made no sense as there were no black holes anywhere near their location,

A man appeared on the screen, pushing himself off of the ground to his feet. He quickly moved out of the line of sight, his appearance a blur. He continued talking, his voice determining his age to be in his twenties or thirties. "It seems as though I entered an entirely different reality-a different universe, and none of this is making any sense!" he shouted as the sounds of knobs being frantically pulled and buttons pushed transmitted over the intercom.

"Doctor..." the captain said in frustration.

"How do you know who I am?!" the man shouted. Suddenly the man's face appeared on the screen once more, his jaw big and square and too large as he was holding it far too close to the camera. His eyes were frantic as he stared into his screen, his long brown hair in tangles all around his head.

Damian connected the dots, realizing that the man's name must have been "doctor," which was extremely strange, but stranger still was the fact that the captain had known who the strange man on a spaceship out in the depths of space was.

The man's eyebrows extended up high as he caught sight of the captain, his face lighting up into a wide smile. "Jane!" He shouted excitedly, clapping his hands together.

Damian glanced at the captain, wondering if that was her real name or if the man had mistaken her. Instead he was met with the captain smiling openly at the screen, not denying his claim, and instead smiling as if in acknowledgement. The pieces of the situation, though shattered, began to fall into place as Damian's mind grasped for clarity. The two of them recognized each other? he wondered in speculation, the entire impossibility of their situation making his head begin to buzz in discomfort.

The man-the doctor's-expression then turned into confusion as he looked beyond the camera, looking at something on his side of the line, "but what are you doing here?" His flashing eyes then looked back into the screen, his voice laced with confusion; "where are we exactly?"

A scoff of incredulity almost escaped from Damian's lips as he questioned how someone at the edge of the universe could have gotten there without knowing their location. He glanced at the captain, hoping for some sort of clarification, but instead he was completely ignored.

"I'll tell you that once you arrive," the captain responded briskly before looking past her screen. "Gregory I need you to send our coordinates to their ship, along with a map of our spaceship."

Damian stared at the captain incredulously, wondering why she was giving out their coordinates and layout-if that information were given to an enemy ship it would be severely detrimental to their safety. None of this was making sense, the entire past five minutes seeming as a dream.

Suddenly on the screen a short woman appeared, bumping the man off to the side so that she could see the screen. She had a petite, oval shaped face and wide brown eyes, her straight brown hair hung loosely around her shoulders. Her red lips pulled into a smile as she recognized the captain. "Jane!" she exclaimed happily. The man disappeared from the screen and the noise of button pressing resumed.

"Hello Clara," The captain-Jane-responded with a smile of her own. Here was another person who knew the captains name, who were they? Damian wondered.

"Ok, I got the coordinates and the map!" the man shouted from off screen. "Where should I land?"

"Room 483. See you soon." Jane swiped her arm through the air and the screen disappeared.

Now was a time for an explanation, Damian thought deservedly. He tried to make eye contact with the captain, aiming for a confrontation, but instead she ignored his gaze and swept past him. He reeled in shock from her blatant display of cold shoulder, before following after her in anger. He had a right to know what was going on, and he had several questions he wanted answered. Who were the strange couple from the transmission, what were they doing so far out in space, what was the 'doctor' talking about when he mentioned black holes and different universes. How did they know her, and how she them? How did she expect them to land in a room of their ship, were they just going to appear magically, and why did she give them a map of their ship? How far away were they and where was their transmission coming from?

Once the doors slid shut behind them on the elevator, Damian confronted her. "Who are they?" he asked, asking the most pertinent question.

"Old friends." Her nose crinkled in confusion, "Well, he's an old friend, I don't know where in Clara's timeline I am, though she recognized me, so that's a good sign."

He bristled in frustration, taking a step closer to her. "What is that supposed to mean?"

She bit her lower lip, staring up at him with wide eyes as if she were afraid of his reaction. Damian realized that he was standing over her, much too close for comfort, his fists clenched and nostrils flared in anger. She hadn't cowered or taken a step back, instead remained standing, her posture submissive. Realizing how confrontational he was behaving, he relented and took a step back, unclenching his fingers. "How do you know them?" he asked softer, though frustration still seeped into his voice.

"I know them from an alternate universe," she responded, her tone even.

He examined her face to see if she was telling the truth; her eyes were sincere, her expression genuine. She wasn't lying.

"I can't tell you how I came to be in this universe, as honestly I'm not quite sure myself. But these people are good friends of mine, and I trust them with my life, and theirs with me. They'll be able to help us." She looked up to him with determination.

Damian was unsure of how to respond, it felt as though his entire presumption about who the captain really was had been flipped on its head. The revelation that she was from an alternate universe was frightening and eerie, making him feel as though his feelings for her were unjust and wrong.

The doors to the lift opened, but instead of leaving the captain peered at him, waiting for a response. Damian felt sick to his stomach, unsure of himself. Certainly their entire predicament was impossible: colliding universes, affected going on killing rampages, purple space, the end of the universe. Was she from the universe that the time travellers had altered, and she had somehow snuck through? Were people like her going to take over their universe, letting them all kill each other as they became affected, as she and her others took over the remains?

She stretched out a hand and rested it on his chest, her light touch making him flinch. Her expression was torn between confusion and sadness from his adverse reaction, but she kept her hand in place.

"I'm not from the altered universe," she said softly, somehow reading his mind. "Mine is a much older, ancient one, long gone now." Her blue eyes began to fill with sadness.

Damian hadn't realized before how old her eyes had looked, the blue pools seemingly stretching into infinity, the color deep and pure. His heart began to wrench in two for the sadness she felt, the grief and pain seeping through her fingers into his chest.

He wondered what it would be like to be part of one world, with family, and friends, before being launched into a completely different universe, leaving everything behind. He wasn't sure exactly how long ago she had been taken from that universe, but he knew that she had at least been here for eight years. He wondered how that could have happened, how she could be here, and why her friends were now here.

"My friends must have been pulled into this universe; their ship relies on time energy, and they must have been dragged through time and space by the large Time emissions coming from the Time Gate," she said. "As the universes collide there must be a huge displacement of time energy due to all of the altercations wrought by the gate, and their ship would have been drawn into it. They shouldn't be here. I can't let them get hurt, and while they might be able to help us, I have to somehow put them back where they belong."

Her voice was soft and soothing, though tinged with determination and conviction. Damian stared into her ancient eyes, his brain still unsure of what to think or to do, but his heart was pumping furiously beneath her fingertips as he realized that he would do whatever he could to help her, even if it meant risking his life to protect her friends that would be strangers to him.

"What do you need me to do?"

"I need you to keep them safe. They have to get back to their own time, their own universe. They can't die here. I'm sorry that I haven't told you of them before, or about who I really am. But I need you to promise to keep them safe. For me." She looked up to him with wide, pleading eyes.

"I promise."

She offered him a thin smile, her eyes lighting up in eagerness. She stepped up onto her toes, putting her face close to his before giving him a modest kiss on his lips. His lips tingled upon her release as she took a step back and let her hand to fall away from his chest. He felt whole, complete, and defined; a feeling so unlike the solitude he had wrapped himself with his entire life. Though the captain was from a different universe, her background shrouded in mystery, her talents endless, she was his partner. Partner. Till the ends of the universe.